Friday, November 28, 2008

Appointments

I am really happy with the appointment of Paul Volcker to Obama's economic recovery team. Paul Volcker, more-so-than Greenspan, moved the country from the Keynesian insanity where our leaders believed they could micromanage the economy with taxing and spending, to one concentrating on sound monetary policy.

One of the most important events in monetary history came when Volcker gave up the position as head of the Federal Reserve, showing that that the ideas behind the reserve matter more than the personality.

I always felt that Greenspan was punch drunk on the influence of the position. Many of our currently problems are the result of Greenspan staying in the position for far too long.

I was also surprised at the appointment of Lawrence Summers. The faculty of Harvard struggled against Summers a few years back. Most people who are struggled against quietly fade away.

BTW, I hope that people understand that the snide posts in this blog are about negative methodologies. Change campaigns tend to release ugly political forces.

A politician positioned as a change agent is faced with the problem that they must either continue the process of social upheaval that brought them into power, or sit down and try to do what is best for the country. Stopping the agitation for change means selling out one's political base. Continuing the agitation for change leads to an economy that thrashes and falls into a pattern of action/reaction that leads to self destruction.

The centerpiece of my personal political beliefs is that I dislike self-destruction. I want to live in a country where people are trying to find the best path to broadbased prosperity.

My anger for the last several years is directed at the change campaign as it diverts us from a real discussion about how to structure a society with broadbased prosperity.

1 comment:

A politician positioned as a change agent is faced with the problem that they must either continue the process of social upheaval that brought them into power, or sit down and try to do what is best for the country.

Your implication that the two are - apparently without debate? - mutually exclusive causes me to question your understanding of history and political progress.

And considering the current state of our economy, it's laughable to applaud those who overturned Keynsian thought and who promoted (as Greenspan himself has admitted was a mistake) deregulation merely for the sake of deregulation.